Why do autistic people have high IQ’s?

[Anonymous]

What disability is it if they have Low IQ like 70? Why are they unlikely autistic? Why isn’t it possible for someone autistic to have a low IQ?

[Taurus_Woman]

IQ around 70 can fall into borderline intellectual functioning or sometimes mild intellectual disability (depending on daily life skills). Autism and IQ are separate.

Autistic people can have low, average, or high IQ

One does not cause the other

The idea that autistic people are “usually high IQ” is a myth from media, not reality, I think.

[Asker]

But from my experience it happens a lot

[Twalli]

Autism is different than mental retardation. If you have a low IQ the diagnosis is mental retardation.

[Asker]

What if the diagnosis is also autism? Then the autism diagnosis was wrong?

[Twalli]

You could have both, but the autism may not present itself with mental retardation, because at that point the child may be nonverbal.

[Asker]

How so? I’m confused the autism may not be present with the mental retardation how?

[Twalli]

Because mental retardation may mask any obvious autistic symptoms. I'm autistic and verbal, and by the IQ test a genius (although it's really just problem-solving skills). With retardation, many indicators of autism are indistinguishable from those present in mental retardation, and we know they have that. So, the only people coded with autism are already at average intelligence, minimum. So if we removed all those people with mental retardation from looking at percentages for neurotypical people, we would see more high IQ neurotypical people too.

[Asker]

So therefore the autism diagnosis could be wrong and it could be mental retardation instead? And the symptoms of autism could overlap with mental retardation?

[jahaims]

Being autistic doesn't automatically mean a high iq lol.

[Asker]

Why?